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Originally published in 1987, the purpose of this companion volume to Donald Ford’s (1987) Humans as Self-Constructing Living Systems: A Developmental Perspective on Personality and Behavior was to illustrate the potential utility of the Living Systems Framework (LSF) for stimulating new theoretical advances, for guiding research on human behavior and development, and for facilitating the work of the health and human service professions. Although not exactly a "how to" manual, it does provide many concrete examples of how and when the framework can be used to guide scholarly and professional activities. It also provides a concise overview of the framework itself that can help those who have read the theoretical volume refresh their memory, and assist those who have not, in understanding the basic concepts of the LSF and in deciding whether and how the framework might be useful to them.
Originally published in 1987, the purpose of this title was to develop a conceptual framework for understanding individual humans as complex, functional entities. It was felt that a sound developmental theory of human personality and behaviour would help synthesize existing scientific and clinical information into a coherent representation of a person as a functional unit, guide future research, and facilitate the work of the health and human services professions. The volume is aimed at a multidisciplinary-multiprofessional audience.
This book describes a scientifically based theoretical framework about the nature and development of individual humans. Its aim is to integrate all of the biological, psychological, behavioral and social aspects of a person into a representation of them as a dynamic unit. It is designed to be a tool for professionals whose work focuses on helping individuals solve their problems of living and create satisfying lives. Everyone agrees a person is a physical entity, but they also agree that is only part of who they are. We all have goals, personalities, beliefs, feelings, knowledge, skills, values etc. that exist at the person level. People don't just react to forces, events and their environments. Instead they proactively seek to shape themselves and their environments to produce the life they want. Scholars who rejected the mechanistic reductionism model for understanding a person struggled to create a scientifically based alternative. This new theoretical model has emerged from theoretical seeds planted a century ago. The first seeds led to identifying a pattern of interrelated processes that function as a team to cooperatively produce a single adaptive dynamic system. This theoretical framework is now called general systems theory. The second theoretical seeds produced recognition that phenomena represented by the concept of information are of fundamental importance in the dynamics of human development and functioning. This led to the creation of a new science of information and communication theory. It provided a theoretical basis for understanding how subunits of a system could influence one another not only through physical means but also through non-material means called information. The merging of general systems theory and information-communication theory produced powerful new technologies that imitate some inborn human capabilities like self-direction (e.g., control systems; computers; internet). But those technologies do not have the key process that makes a unit a living system: They do not have self-constructing capabilities, i.e., they cannot create life! That is why humans as living systems are so creative and flexibly adaptive. This theoretical model has been applied to understanding and helping people deal with their problems and possibilities in their lives (e.g., developmental psychology; counseling and psychotherapy; motivation; child development; vocational and career development; Alzheimer's).
This integrative volume brings together leading social scientists to present diverse perspectives on the emergence, development, and practical role of self-awareness. Shedding light on the fundamental question of how human beings come to understand who we are--in relation to ourselves, to others, and to the broader world--the book does justice to the complexity of its subject while remaining accessible to readers in a wide range of disciplines. Chapters cover such topics as developmental and evolutionary aspects of self-awareness; the self, consciousness, and theory of mind; and connections between self-awareness and social, affective, academic, and neuropsychological functioning.
The Living Systems Theory of Vocational Behavior and Development (LSVD) explains and illustrates the processes by which individuals construct their work experiences, vocational pathways and career patterns through episodes of interaction with affordances they recognize within their contexts, and how counseling can facilitate those processes. The LSVD was created by combining the scientifically based systems theory that explicates the dynamics of all aspects of human functioning and development, called Humans as Self-Constructing Living Systems, with important ideas about vocational behavior and development. The resulting integrative theory represents the individual person as a dynamic, self-directing and self-constructing entity, i.e., a living system. Behavior Episodes (BEs) are the fundamental, person-in-context, dynamic units of analysis that serve as the “building blocks” by which individuals construct and retain their experiences in patterns that can be reactivated to facilitate future BEs. The book describes how individuals’ history of satisfying BEs and their current activities provide the means by which vocational and career counselors can assist them to create satisfying vocational pathways. It also describes for researchers how new, non-linear, person-centered, quantitative and qualitative research methods can be used to analyze BE patterns to advance understanding of person-level processes that play key roles in individuals’ vocational behavior and development. The LSVD was designed to be not just an integrative framework for the field of career development, but also to reconnect the field to related areas such as human resources and industrial-organizational psychology and to the range of human sciences that have already embraced a living systems theoretical model.
In this groundbreaking handbook, more than 60 internationally respected authorities explore the interface between intelligence and personality by bringing together a wide range of potential integrative links drawn from theory, research, measurements, and applications.
Motivating Humans represents an excellent integration of different motivational constructs. . . . The main purpose of Ford′s book and his theory, motivational systems theory (MST), is to provide an integrative and coherent model of motivation that synthesizes the various constructs from the different theories into one comprehensive framework. . . . It represents an important addition to the knowledge base on motivation and will be generative of much future research. Moreover, the book presents the framework in a scholarly, yet readable, fashion that makes the book accessible to professional psychologists as well as graduate and undergraduate students. --Paul R. Pintrich in Contemporary Psychology Why do people do the things they do? In Motivating Humans, Ford answers this age-old question and offers the reader a precise and comprehensive description of the basic substance of human motivation--what it is, how it works, and how it impacts what people do and how well they do it. He also shows how classic and contemporary motivation theory in education, management, and psychology can be integrated into a coherent and unified framework called Motivational Systems Theory, from which he derives 17 principles for motivating humans. Different from any other motivation book, Motivating Humans presents numerous unique features: a variety of concrete examples to bridge the gap between abstract theory and the world of practical human affairs; an applications chapter that explores such issues as ways to promote social responsibility in youth, ways to increase work productivity and job satisfaction, and ways to increase learning and school achievement; the most up-to-date coverage of recent studies in motivation; and, pedagogical devices, including summary tables to help the reader digest and remember key information. Unique, comprehensive, and accessibly written, Motivating Humans will inspire a wide readership, including professors and students in psychology, management, education, developmental psychology, and clinical psychology. Class-Tested: What the Students Say . . . "The chart on the history of motivational theory organized broadly by MST concepts was extremely helpful in providing the reader with a look at the field in a glance." "First and foremost, the fact that this is a legitimate psychological theory and I can understand it, having had very little other exposure to psychology, is a very strong aspect of the book. Is refers to and explains a variety of psychological theories and principles without losing me. Also, any theory that seems to unify a large volume of disparate work is always attractive to mr, especially if it does a good enough job surveying its predecessors as I think the book does. Finally, I think that the summary of the LSF in chapter two was integral to the ′largeness′ or wide-view of the book. It helped to tie in and explain the ′whole-person′ approach to motivational theory." I really liked how MST emphasized the role of emotions in motivation and human action where other theories had rationalized them. Emotions are very powerful and, I believe, virtually impossible to explain away--something that I think psychology does too readily." "Motivational Systems Theory is the most comprehensive and compelling theory of human motivation which I have seen to date. Martin Ford has taken an impoverished and muddled field of psychological inquiry and transformed it into a coherent and useful tool for explaining human behavior. Chapter 6 is especially brilliant. It gives an overview of all the major (and most of the not-so-major) theories and capitalizes on their similarities rather than their differences." "Most practitioners in schools and business recognize the value of motivating people and do so operating from their gut; it is good to know that there is a workable and logical theory to put behind the practice and help refine it. Chapter 7 is particularly helpful; one could read this chapter and none others and still benefit." "Finally, a book which will help educators turn their students on to learning. It should be required reading for all classroom teachers." Praise for this volume . . . "Motivating Humans, by Martin Ford, presents one of the most complete and comprehensive theories of human motivation yet to be proposed. This is a significant work that is essential reading for all interested both in understanding motivation and in applying motivational principles in the workplace." --Robert J. Sternberg, Yale University "Motivating Humans is a well thought-out and well-organized book that focuses on issues of motivation. Educators, in particular, will be interested in this volume. It utilizes a combination of logic and existing literature to build its case. . . . Martin Ford′s work is creative, yet analytic. Motivating Humans will certainly stimulate some serious class discussion." --Gerald R. Adams, College of Family and Consumer Studies University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada "Using a broad, systems perspective, Ford has skillfully organized a wide and all-too-often confusing array of advances in motivation theory and research. Students, researchers, and practitioners in education and psychology should find this book most helpful in providing a clear and thought-provoking introduction to the field." --Ruth Kanfer, Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota "Motivating Humans contains a wealth of information--from theory to application--to help educators increase school learning and achievement. Twenty-five pages of bibliography alone make this book attest to its thoroughness. A chapter of theories of motivation can only be regarded as definitive--some 31 theories of motivation are described and arranged in a table format. . . . Ford regards facilitation, not control, as the guiding idea for motivating people; an idea that fits nicely with the growing role of teacher as facilitator. Wisely, he offers no ready formula for facilitating motivation, for ′there are no magic motivational buttons that can be pushed to make people want to learn, work hard, and act in a responsible manner.′ But Ford does offer a comprehensive glimpse into the mechanism of motivation for those who are trying to find their own paths toward inspiring it. . . . It deserves the highest praise and the widest reading for its treatment of such a complex subject in such an accessible and thorough manner. Motivating Humans should serve long as the standard source and reference on motivation." --Educational Leadership